Islamabad:
The National Assembly regained its full strength on Wednesday when the Election Commission in Pakistan (ECP) distributed reserved seats among the parliamentary parties in parliament in line with the decision of the constitutional bench (CB) in the Supreme Court last week.
In a 7-3 majority decision in the reserved SEAT’s review case, CB overturned the Supreme Court’s 12th July 2024 judgment on Friday, and effectively removed the reserved seats from Pakistan Tehreek-E-Insaf (PTI) and handed them to their rival parties in national and provincial legislation.
CB restored on March 25, 2024, Peshawar High Court (PHC), who had deprived the Sunni Ite Council party, which joined PTI supported independent after the election 8 February 2024-of reserved seats. The decision effectively meant that PTI was no longer a parliamentary party.
Therefore, the 77 reserved seats in the national and provincial assemblies were assigned among the parliamentary parties present in the respective assemblies as they could not be kept unemployed. As expected, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PKL-N) was the largest recipient.
In the light of the CB decision, ECP distributed 19 reserved seats in the National Assembly, of which, according to an ECP declaration, 13 went to PML-N, four for Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) and two to Jamiat Disadvantaged disadvantage (Jui).
Following the allocation of the reserved seats, the prevailing coalition, which includes PML-N, PPPP, Muttahida Qaumi movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and other parties, increased over two-thirds majority of 224 in the 336 strong house.
By acting on the court’s judgment, the ECP placed an order on Wednesday and withdrew its announcements on July 24 and 29, 2024, who had declared some independent candidates who won the general seats in the national and provincial assemblies as PTI legislators.
In another order, the ECP informed the names of the returned candidates under different categories of the reserved seats with immediate effect. The National Assembly Secretariat later detailed the house composition, which reflects the actual party position following the court’s judgment and the distribution of the ECP.
The data released by the Secretariat’s legislative branch showed that the strength of the Treasury benched to 235 seats, where 98 of the opposition in the house currently consisted of 333 legislators – with a member being suspended and two reserved seats that remain the unemployed.
The ECP also distributed the reserved seats in the provincial assemblies. In the KP assembly, 10 seats were given to Jui-F, seven to PML-N, six to PPPP and one to the PTI parliamenters and Awami National Party (ANP).
PML-N got 23 seats in the Punjab assembly to PPPP and one to Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) and Istehkam-E-Pakistan Party (IPP). In the Sindh collection two seats were given to PPPP and one for MQM-P.
